News from the parliamentary monitoring community:

In Afghanistan, the Free & Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan (FEFA) released its six-month report on parliamentary activities. Findings of the report include the number of plenary and committee sessions held, the number of laws approved, positive developments and shortcomings, as well as recommendations for improvement. The report is published during a critical period in Afghanistan, with  the government in the midst of extended political gridlock preventing the enactment of much needed reforms. FEFA also signed a MoU with the Meshrano Jirga, the upper house of parliament, to conduct a similar assessment, with aims to increase public awareness on parliament’s activities and strengthen the level of cooperation between parliament and civil society.

In Costa Rica, the Alliance for Open Assembly, which includes ACCESA, Abriendo Datos, Costa Rica Íntegra, Iplex, Proledi, and Ojo al Voto, partnered with the Fundación Directorio Legislativo to foment major strides toward openness within the Costa Rican legislature. Together they created and signed a commitment seeking to promote openness, transparency, and accountability. The commitment includes a variety of different components, each working to counter the existing lack of trust in Costa Rican institutions. This commitment combined with the drafting of an action plan for legislative opening seek to strengthen and enable “a more democratic democracy.”

In Mexico, for the tenth anniversary of the Collective for Transparency campaign, Fundar launched #ArmonizaTuLey, an initiative to monitor the process of harmonizing state laws with the new federal regulatory framework for transparency and access to information. With the approval of the constitutional reform in 2013 and the General Act in 2014, Mexico has set up a robust framework that safeguards these rights. Fundar reports that while the deadline for adoption of the new regulatory framework is fast approaching, 29 states in Mexico still have not completed this obligation. The Collective for Transparency calls on legislators to fulfill their legal obligation of harmonizing state laws, respect this timeline for action, and engage citizens in this effort.

In Kenya, Mzalendo Trust announced the second People’s Shujaaz Awards to recognize Parliamentarians for championing issues of high public interest in the National Assembly and Senate in 2015. The final selection was made based on the legislators’ demonstration of leadership, factoring in the motions that were put forth, and statements and petitions they represented. The nominees were chosen in consultation with civil society groups under the Parliamentary Initiatives Network. While Mzalendo hopes that the People’s Shujaaz Awards helps to spotlight the positive achievements and key contributions made in Parliament, Mzalendo also issued a list of lessons learned, with recommendations for the legislature to strengthen its image, communicate its work more effectively with citizens, and find new ways for civic engagement using technology and social media.

In the US, the OpenGov Foundation received a $200,000 grant from the Rita Allen Foundation to support the continued development of an open-source platform to digitize Chicago’s legislative process over the next two years. In partnership with Chicago’s City Clerk’s office, the project aims to keep legislation in standardized, accessible formats, and allow citizens to better share feedback with their elected officials.

In India, PRS Legislative Research published two op-eds on legislative reform in major news outlets.  The authors called to question the effectiveness of India’s legislature, highlighting in particular the decrease in legislative productivity caused by disruptions and lapses in conduct by members. With a detailed breakdown of how time was used during parliamentary proceedings, the articles underscores the necessity of urgent reforms to restore both the Parliament’s role as an effective deliberative body, as well as citizens’ faith in Parliament as a representative institution as a whole.

Click here to read more.

News from the parliamentary monitoring community:

In Argentina, CIPPEC, with support of a public TV channel, organized a series of dialogues between young voters and five candidates running to become Mayor of Buenos Aires. To increase reach, each dialogue was broadcast using Google Hangouts and provided opportunities for interaction over social networks.

In Germany, Parliament Watch won a lawsuit calling on the parliament to disclose information on lobbyists who have registered with the Bundestag.

In Uganda, Parliament Watch released a report entitled “Assessment of the Accountability Committees of Parliament”. The assessment found that accountability committees struggle to review and respond to Auditor General reports in a timely manner, creating a large backlog of reports. The assessment concludes with a number of institutional, administrative, and political recommendations to help accountability committees deal with these challenges.

In Croatia, GONG and Code for Croatia launched a new website that allows citizens to request information from more than 6000 public authorities, including the Croatian Parliament.

In Norway, Holder de Ord launched Sagt i Salen (Said in the Parliament), a new feature that shows how many times a certain word has been used in parliamentary debate. This tool facilitates political speech analysis by showing how many times a word has been used in a given year, by a political party, or by an individual MP.   

In Ghana, the Center for Democratic Development began to implement a project called “Building Transparency, Participation and Feedback around Local Government Budgeting and Planning Systems.” The project aims to promote change in “attitudes and behaviors of both the Assembly staff and the citizenry for improved transparency and accountability in the management of local revenue.”

In Georgia, Transparency International released a policy brief calling for the creation of a verification system that would review public officials’ asset declarations. Evidence gathered by TI suggests that a verification system would help ensure that public officials’ asset declarations are complete and accurate. TI also released and assessment of Georgia’s national integrity system.

In Tunisia, Al Bawsala issued a press release with recommendations for improving the draft right to information bill that is currently being considered by the parliament.

Click here to read more.

This will be the last Newsbrief of 2014. See you in 2015! 

News from the parliamentary monitoring community:

In India, PRS Legislative Research held its 7th annual Conference on Effective Legislatures, which featured several lectures exploring the ways in which the parliament can more effectively fulfill its mandate. In preparation for the conference, which took place on December 9, PRS Legislative Research drafted three discussion papers on Parliament’s Role in Financial Oversight, Parliament as a Law Making Body, and Parliamentary Oversight of the Executive.

In Tunisia, Al Bawsala published a report on the development of rules of procedure in the National Constituent Assembly. The report also includes the organization’s recommendations for changes to the rules of procedure that would strengthen the Assembly and make it more transparent.  

In Croatia, noting increasing public distrust of politicians and members of parliament, GONG has released recommendations to improve the management of conflicts of interest and strengthen public integrity systems.

In Kenya, Mzalendo launched the People’s Shujaaz Awards to recognize members of parliament in the National Assembly and Senate that have served as champions of the public interest.

In Malaysia, Sinar Project launched BillWatcher, making it easier to find, search for, and discuss pieces of legislation introduced in the Malaysian parliament.

In Australia, OpenAustralia.org – a website built and managed by the Open Australia Foundation – now includes searchable data on how members of parliament vote.

Click here to read more.

As always, please feel free to send updates through the OpeningParliament.org contact page for inclusion in the News Brief.

News from the OpeningParliament.org community:

Globally, the OGP’s Legislative Openness Working Group organized GLOW, or Global Legislative Openness Week. GLOW consisted of events and activities focused on transparent, participatory legislative processes organized by members of the parliamentary openness community in 30 countries. Further details about event outcomes can be found on the blog.

The voting period for Making All Voices Count’s Global Innovation Competition began October 22 and concludes November 23. The competition includes 241 ideas, many of which were submitted by members of the OP community. The public is encouraged to review these ideas and vote for those they believe will most effectively empower citizens and secure more accountable, open governance in the program’s 12 key countries.

In Latin America, the LALT Network released their 2014 Index of Legislative Transparency, with detailed analysis on the congresses of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, México, Perú, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

In Mexico, the Open Parliament Alliance launched as a collaboration between Congress, the Federal Institute for Access to Information and Data Protection (IFAI), and a coalition of civil society groups with the purpose of ensuring that Mexico’s 32 state legislatures and national congress comply with principles of parliamentary openness.

Mexico also hosted AbreLatam and Con Datos, two important events organized around open government, legislative transparency, and citizen participation. A short Spanish language summary of the conversations that took place at these events can be found here.

In Portugal, the parliament passed a resolution supporting the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness with near identical language to the Declaration itself. The resolution progressed through the entire legislative process, from committee to plenary, before ultimately being passed on July 10.

Click here to read more.

News from the OpeningParliament.org community:

In Germany, the Open Knowledge Festival took place in Berlin from July 15-17. A good summary of the event can be viewed here. Members of the OpeningParliament.org community that attended include Foundation ePaństwo, DATA Uruguay, Sunlight Foundation, Fundar, Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente, KohoVolit, K-Monitor, Holder de Ord, Hvem Stemmer Hvad, Open Ministry, Open Knowledge Foundation Germany, Open State Foundation, Open North, OpenKratio, Hasadna, mySociety, and Access Info.

Elsewhere, Parliament Watch recently announced an online survey that documents the positions of Germany’s 96 MEPs on important policy issues. In addition to the survey, the organization also collected voting behavior of the elected officials during the last parliamentary term.

In Greece, the Ministry of Administrative Reform and E-Government submitted the country’s Action Plan to the Open Government Partnership (OGP). The plan contains ambitious commitments on parliamentary openness and legislative transparency, including the introduction of a system for tracking bill changes, improvements in the usability and functionality of the parliament’s website, provision of historical parliamentary documents, and enhancements of social media policy.

In Ireland, the government launched data.gov.ie, an open data portal that currently supports 419 datasets. The Minister of Public Education and Reform announced the end of application fees for FOI requests. And the government approved the country’s Action Plan for OGP which includes several components to increase citizen participation during the pre-legislative process through consultation with committees and scrutiny of draft bills.

In France, Regards Citoyens initiated a crowdsourcing project that converted declarations of interests for all 925 MPs into open data. The declarations were previously scanned into PDFs by the High Authority on Transparency in Public Life (HATVP). The conversion of these files to open data brings the declarations into line with standards established in October 2013 by France’s law on the transparency of public life.

In Italy, OpenPolis and others have been drawing attention to the country’s need for an FOI law with the #FOIA4Italy campaign. Despite the growing momentum around FOI in recent years, there has been a lack of progress on the issue in parliament. FOIA4Italy plans to submit an FOIA bill based on legislation in countries with advanced access to information laws after crowdsourcing improvements from the Italian public.

In Tunisia, Al Bawsala unveiled a new project, Marsad Baladia, a platform that will monitor the activities of municipalities to generate greater citizen awareness before municipal elections scheduled for 2015. The project has already created a transparency index from the 24 municipalities it has so far observed.

Click here to read more.

News from the OpeningParliament.org community:

In Argentina, a group of NGOs and members from both houses of congress launched a working group on legislative transparency in May. Shortly after, a summit was held in Buenos Aires to showcase regional experiences regarding legislative transparency. At the summit, members of both chambers agreed to introduce legislation to modernize their access to information policies.  

In Paraguay, an access to information bill was passed in the Chamber of Deputies after a controversial amendment making it easier for the government to withhold certain types of information was removed. The bill now returns to the Senate, which passed a similar version earlier this year.

In France, Regards Citoyens and Sciences Po launched a new project, La Fabrique De La Loi, which hosts tools to analyze parliamentary debates and track the evolution of bills throughout the legislative process. The project utilizes public data in order to shed light on parliamentary procedures and their impact on the lawmaking process.

In Morocco, SimSim-Civic Participation will launch Nouabook.ma this week, Morocco’s first website to facilitate citizen engagement with parliament.

In Hungary, the government included K-Monitor on a list of “problematic” NGOs that are routinely critical of the government. The list follows a disagreement between the government and Norway Grants, the organization that funds many of the organizations, several of which were recently raided by government officials.

Click here to read more.

News from the OpeningParliament.org community:

In the Netherlands, more than 400 municipalities will go to the polls on March 19. Research conducted by Open State, in collaboration with students from the University of Utrecht, recently concluded that information about local council voting records remains difficult to find or nonexistent for most municipalities across the country.  

In the United States, the Governance Lab at New York University announced the formation of a Research Network on Opening Governance, which will seek to develop blueprints for more effective and legitimate democratic institutions. The project was made possible through a three year grant of $5 million, from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, as well as a gift from Google.org.

Elsewhere In the United States, GovTrack.us released comprehensive report cards on a range of subjects, including government transparency, for Members of Congress for 2013. In February, the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) completed its efforts to provide House of Representatives bill summaries in XML format for bulk data download. While GPO already makes available House bills, the Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, and other documents from the executive branch in XML, the new feature will increase the availability of objective descriptions of complex legislative text, and is thus an important step in the House Leadership’s goal of increasing transparency.  

In Venezuela, Transparency Venezuela launched a report on the activities of the National Assembly in 2013, focusing in particular on the committees of Finance and Comptroller. Transparency also released a report in January on the latest developments in the Petrocaribe Energy Cooperation Agreement, detailing issues with Haiti and the Dominican Republic.  

In South Africa,  the Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG) published an article about shrinking the accountability deficit created by a system where voters cannot directly call on individual public representatives on the basis that their votes put them there. The article highlighted a recent CSO initiative, the People’s Assembly website, to facilitate public participation. The website provides critical information in an easily understandable format to members of the public.

Click here to read more.